This gala evening, presumably recorded for Austrian Television,
captures Janowitz towards the end of her prime. It’s not particularly
attractive or engaging, though, and its main value is historical.

Janowitz studied at the Graz Conservatory
- about the only useful thing the notes tell us - and this concert
is meant to represent some sort of homecoming. There isn’t much
sense of atmosphere, though, something not helped by the grainy
picture, inconsistent editing and mono sound. It’s clearly an
old-fashioned gala: the playing of the two Handel numbers would
sound very out of place today using, as they do, a big string
band and pretty slow tempi, especially for the overture. When
Janowitz appears she has her characteristic big hair and wears
what looks like a sparkly dressing-gown. Her facial expression
never changes: it has a slightly pained, distant look whatever
she is singing. None of this would matter much were her singing
extraordinary, but in most cases it’s pretty ordinary too. Her
smooth, bright soprano sounds the same for every character.
The Handel aria sounds good in the slower passages, but the
bright coloratura goes too quickly for her to keep up with,
something not helped by the fact that she opens her mouth only
very slightly for the whole duration of the aria! The same pale
coloratura is there for the Verdi aria, while this and Vissi
d’arte suffer from her almost total lack of Italianate quality.
She seems more comfortable in the Mozart, where she finds the
quicker passages less challenging. She is also secure in the
aria from Tannhäuser, though she is too matronly to convince
as the excitable young Elizabeth. Her finest moment is the aria
from Freischütz, her home territory and the only one
of these roles that she recorded complete (barring a live Don
Giovanni on Opera d’Oro). Here the gently purity of her
voice is perfectly matched to Agathe’s radiant anticipation,
and she copes ably with the glowing excitement of the end of
the aria.

On the whole, then, this is interesting
as a taster of roles that Janowitz never recorded complete, but
it is of little more than historical value and it isn’t a collection
I’ll be returning to in a hurry.

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